{"id":2147,"date":"2018-07-12T23:52:16","date_gmt":"2018-07-13T03:52:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/?p=2147"},"modified":"2018-08-01T00:31:41","modified_gmt":"2018-08-01T04:31:41","slug":"hiring-away-employees-may-look-bad-but-plaintiff-still-must-show-missappropriation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/?p=2147","title":{"rendered":"Hiring Away Employees May Look Bad, But Plaintiff Still Must Show Missappropriation"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Raytheon Company v. Indigo Systems Corporation<\/a>, [2016-1945, 2016-2050] (July 12, 2018), the Federal Circuit affirmed the judgment of no liability for misappropriation of trade secrets, and the denial of attorneys fees.<\/p>\n

At issue on appeal was\u00a0 whether the jury\u2019s\u00a0verdict that Indigo did not misappropriate Raytheon\u2019s\u00a0Trade Secrets was supported by substantial\u00a0evidence; whether the district court abused its discretion\u00a0in denying Raytheon\u2019s motion for a new trial; and\u00a0whether the district court abused its discretion in\u00a0denying Indigo\u2019s motion for attorney fees.<\/p>\n

The Federal Circuit found\u00a0evidence at trial showed that Indigo employees\u00a0independently developed Indigo\u2019s\u00a0technology without\u00a0using Raytheon\u2019s, and further that Indigo’s technology was “significantly different” from Ratheon’s. The Federal Circuit found that the jury reasonably found that Indigo\u00a0did not misappropriate trade secrets, and the\u00a0district court did not err in denying Raytheon\u2019s motion for\u00a0judgment as a matter of law regarding this claim.<\/p>\n

As to Raytheon\u2019s motion for a new trial, the Federal Circuit said that Raytheon’s failure to establish its entitlement to\u00a0judgment as a matter of law on the trade secret\u00a0 mis- appropriation\u00a0issue also means it has failed to establish its\u00a0entitlement to a new trial. Thus, the district court did not\u00a0abuse its discretion in denying Raytheon\u2019s alternative
\nmotion for a new trial.<\/p>\n

As to Indigo’s challenge to the district\u00a0court\u2019s denial of attorneys’ fees, the Federal Circuit noted that an award of attorney’s fees to the prevailing party is mandatory when the\u00a0statutory requirements under the TTLA are met.\u00a0 While Indigo argued that Raytheon’s dropping of its claim under Texas law made it the prevailing party, the Federal Circuit held that it had to establish: (1) it actually\u00a0prevailed on the merits of a TTLA claim; (2) Raytheon\u00a0dismissed the TTLA claim with prejudice; or (3) Raytheon
\ndismissed the TTLA claim without prejudice to avoid an\u00a0adverse ruling on the merits.\u00a0 , and that . Texas\u00a0courts have noted that such an award may be based on a
\ncourt decision on the merits for either party.\u00a0 The Federal Circuit held that none of these applied.\u00a0 The Federal Circuit noted that dismissing the TTLA claim without prejudice in favor of the CUTSA in this context appears to represent\u00a0a preference by Raytheon to pursue its trade secret\u00a0misappropriation claims under one state\u2019s laws over\u00a0another\u2019s. The Federal Circuit agreed with the district court\u00a0that it is far from clear that Raytheon\u2019s focus on California\u00a0law over Texas law was taken \u201cto avoid an unfavorable\u00a0ruling on the merits.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Raytheon Company v. Indigo Systems Corporation, [2016-1945, 2016-2050] (July 12, 2018), the Federal Circuit affirmed the judgment of no liability for misappropriation of trade secrets, and the denial of attorneys fees. At issue on appeal was\u00a0 whether the jury\u2019s\u00a0verdict … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-trade-secrets"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2147"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2150,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2147\/revisions\/2150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}